1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to liquid ejecting heads such as ink jet recording heads, and to liquid ejecting apparatuses, and more particularly to a liquid ejecting head including a plurality of nozzle groups in which nozzle openings are arranged, and pressure generating chambers communicating with the nozzle openings, the liquid ejecting head causing a pressure variation to be generated in liquid in a pressure generating chamber so as to eject the liquid from a nozzle opening corresponding to the pressure generating chamber, and to a liquid ejecting apparatus having the liquid ejecting head.
2. Related Art
A liquid ejecting apparatus includes a liquid ejecting head capable of ejecting liquid, and ejects various kinds of liquid from the liquid ejecting head. For example, a typical liquid ejecting apparatus may be an image recording apparatus such as an ink jet printer. The ink jet printer includes an ink jet recording head (hereinafter, merely referred to as recording head) as a liquid ejecting head, and performs printing by ejecting liquid-state ink, which is in the form of ink droplets, from nozzle openings of the recording head to allow the ink droplets to land on a recording medium (ejection target) such as a recording sheet. In recent years, a liquid ejecting apparatus is applied to not only the image recording apparatus, but also various kinds of manufacturing apparatuses, such as a color filter manufacturing apparatus for color filters of, for example, liquid crystal displays.
In the ink jet printer (hereinafter, merely referred to as printer), ink droplets are ejected by applying an ejection pulse, from a driving signal containing a series of ejection pulses, selectively to a pressure generating unit (for example, a piezoelectric vibrator, which is an electromechanical converter, or a heating element, which is an electrothermal converter); driving the pressure generating unit; causing a pressure variation to be generated in ink in a pressure generating chamber; and controlling the pressure variation (for example, see JP-A-2002-103619).
Meanwhile, such a printer is demanded to record an image or the like efficiently with a reduced amount of ink. In particular, when an image is to be recorded on a recording sheet, a deformation (roughness) may be generated at a recording sheet because of moisture contained in ink, or an ink bleed may be found at a recorded image. Hence, a total amount of ink landing on a recording sheet is preferably reduced as much as possible. Also, if ink in an ink cartridge is consumed quickly, the ink cartridge has to be frequently replaced, thereby increasing the running cost, which is a burden to a user, and providing an adverse effect on the environmental conservation.